


New Mythologies

by wrecked_anon



Category: Norse Mythology, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drama, Epic, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2013-04-23
Packaged: 2017-12-09 06:57:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/771332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrecked_anon/pseuds/wrecked_anon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Predictions were slowly falling out of joint. The Norns had watched with interest when Odin adopted the Jotun child; now the Bifrost lay dead, broken millenia too soon by Thor, and Loki had dropped into some vast Between. They monitored his fall with some concern. After all, once a thread of events frayed from its foretold timeline, the new path was unknown, and always of significance.</em>
</p>
<p>Post-Avengers, Thanos seeks a particular genius human and his arc reactor. Loki finds himself tangled in the affairs of still more powerful beings, and an inter-realm game of cat-and-mouse ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Mythologies

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Deleted scene at the end of Avengers](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/20522) by frostironistheperfectotp. 



1.

Three figures emerged from their golden hall at the base of the roots, as they’d done every morning as long as there was such a thing as mornings. The roots were white where the remnants of clay had been smeared across them, layer upon protective layer, for millennia. The figures were white also: white robes, long white hair, pale skin and pale eyes—not an ounce of pigment split between them. It was what the well took, the price they paid to reside in this holiest of places, beside the roots of the tree that held the realms together.

They clustered around the curve of the well mouth, each with a golden basin in hand. The shortest of them, with a round, open face and laughing eyes, reached down and scooped up a measure of the dark smooth earth beneath their feet. She stood and split the dirt between them with a smile, giving just a little bit more to her taller sister, who never smiled, and had always worked faster and more thoroughly. The third sister grasped the handle of the ewer they used to draw water and poured some over their mounds of dirt. She watched with a familiar mix of satisfaction and sorrow as the well water bled the earth of color.

She reached into the bowl to mix it, felt the pleasant slide of silty mud between her fingers. Wordlessly they parted from the well to begin their care of the vital root system, starting where they had left off the prior afternoon. The work was at once relaxing and invigorating, moving systematically from root to root, returning to the well when she needed more clay. It had the rhythm of dance and the emptiness of meditation. Inhaling slowly, she sank her fingers into the smooth white mud and smeared a handful across the gnarled bark before her.

And left a trail of red in her wake. She gaped.

It bubbled, hissing as if from some internal heat, steam rising into the cool air. She turned to call to her sisters, but was gripped by the roiling dark of new prophecy. The sensation was not unfamiliar, but it had been immeasurable years since she'd been taken with it and at first she resisted. From somewhere beyond her the black poured in and sought hold.

She broke and let it wash over her, the familiar jagged rush of image and sensation and sound,  but also something new. This was more than a prophecy; it was what had already come to pass somehow, without her having been aware. Somewhere beyond the nine realms, something had found Loki in his fall Between. But it was more that that too, as if gears were coming together, tooth into tooth-groove and axle turning, things were falling into place that should not be.

 

2.

_The cell was too small. It was too small. If they'd allowed him to keep his magic, it might have been manageable, but this was a level of hell he hadn't been anticipating. That was the point, really._

Loki shifted restlessly, even in sleep. The fickle light of a guttering torch set into the wall outside his cell caught his face, shadowing the hollows beneath his eyes. Lacking furniture, he was sprawled on the floor, still bound, mostly as they’d left him upon being escorted to this cell somewhere far below the palace halls.

Three days he’d remained in the near-dark. The first day he’d spent studying his manacles, the runes of Odin’s binding magic teasing him from their surface. His body felt too big for his skin, and the sensation was maddening, especially in such a small space. Even the probing spells he’d tried to use to get between the layers of the complex binding sputtered out before they could give him any insights into a possible escape.

So he slept, if for no other reason than to pass the time. Loki was not unaccustomed to waiting.

A pale hand pressed to his forehead, thumb smoothing out the crease between his brows that had formed from yet another wordless nightmare.

"There is much to be done, Trickster. Why are you sleeping?"

He stirred under the hand’s light touch, heavy lids lifting as he turned his head to look at its owner. A woman, dressed in white robes, was crouched over him in the cell. Loki recognized her immediately.  
Forgetting himself, he tried to word a question that came out as a low hum. She ran a finger along the muzzle and he averted his eyes in shame.

The woman clicked her tongue in disapproval and tilted his head up with a hand under his chin, forcing him to look her in the face. "You must hate this," she said softly. Loki's glance to the side affirmed. She cupped the side of the muzzle with her other hand, and a metallic click sounded behind his head.

Eyes wide, he pulled away and moved to sit up, back against the rough wall of the cell. She reached out again, both hand going behind his neck, and unfastened the muzzle. He parted his teeth to be rid of the gag, and she removed it, stretching a thin line of drool between them that Loki hastily waved away.

A wry smile twisted his features, somewhere between relief and terror. “Urd. Never in a thousand years would I have expected you here, of all places.” He said with a measure of reverence. “How might I be of service?”

 

3.

A particularly impressive streak of lightning arced above the Manhattan skyline, illuminating the streets below as if the night was interested in seeing what damage had been wrought throughout the city.

In bed, in his tower high above, Tony Stark rolled over, then rolled again, his sleeping body struggling to find a position that didn’t ache from every dent and blow. Everything was bruised and his muscles were sore from falling and being caught at high speed. They don’t tell you that in physics. You can increase t to decelerate more reasonably from free-fall, but there’s only so much a human body can handle without breaking a little.

On the nightstand next to his left arm, now draped across his face, his Stark Phone flashed with a text message from Pepper: _Flight delayed until morning. Weather system over NY is unpredictable. Hope you’re sleeping through it._

As if in response to her message, Tony let out a low grumble and curled over on himself in the near-dark. In the aftermath of the Chitauri's attack on the city, few rooms remained undamaged at the top of the tower, but Tony had managed to find one guest bedroom without windows and crashed on the bed, blood alcohol staggering toward toxic.

Another streak of lightning rippled across the sky outside, and was followed shortly by a roll of thunder that rumbled low and ended with a boom that would have rattled the penthouse windows, if there had been any left. Tony groaned, but the thunder persisted and the half-bottle of single-malt scotch in his system wasn’t enough to keep him under. He rolled onto his back amid the pillows, stretching stiff arms toward the headboard, and squinted his eyes open in the dark.

Loki peered back, looming over Tony from above.

Recognition dawned almost instantly and Tony scrambled back ungracefully, trying with all his drunken might to melt through the headboard. Loki watched, highly unimpressed, as he managed to raise himself up on his elbows, legs tangled in the sheets. “Holy fuck how did y-”

Loki moved fluidly with him as he tried to sit up, pressing a cool hand across Tony’s mouth before he could voice his slurred confusion. _Not fear, never that_. He was pinned to the headboard, immobilized by the god who less than a week prior had none-too-gently thrown him through one of his own windows, the nerve.

Glaring at Loki as best he could with blurred vision and only his still-flashing phone screen for light, he reached up to dig his nails into the hand covering his mouth. Loki merely quirked an unamused brow at the attempt and increased the pressure across Tony’s mouth until the force of it caused Tony to slip down the headboard and thup quietly onto the pillows.

Loki leaned over him, crouched with a knee on either side of his chest. “If I remove my hand, will you be silent?”

Tony growled something muffled and decidedly cranky.

Loki narrowed his eyes. “I knew I shouldn’t have bothered asking. Very well.” The bed dipped toward one side as Loki shifted off, one hand tight across Tony’s mouth as he used the other to rip the blankets away.

Adrenaline rushed in abruptly as his body’s sense of self-preservation overrode the alcohol still in his bloodstream. Tony kicked out as much in response as surprise, pulling his legs up and struggling to roll out from under Loki’s firm hand. The god barely spared him a glance and pushed his legs to the other side as he began searching through the pile of pillows on the other side of the bed.

Feeling suddenly sober, Tony shivered in the cold, regretting his decision to fall asleep in just his underwear and the black sweater he’d been wearing earlier.

Loki, hand still clamped over Tony’s mouth, hopped gracefully off the bed, only to land next to the nightstand with a slight wince. Tony stopped struggling and turned to watch with interest as Loki mentally shook off the pain and started rooting through the nightstand drawers.

“Very well, I give up.” He hissed, turning to face Tony. “I know you must keep it near your person. I’m awfully short on time and even shorter on patience. Where is it?”

Tony growled something behind Loki’s hand and threw his hands in the air.

“That’s disappointing. You’re of no use at all.” Tony thrashed on the bed in frustration and Loki glared. “Be still. Thor is on his way and you will be ‘safe’ soon. Just tell me where you’ve hidden it and I’ll be gone.”

Tony stabbed a finger in the direction of the hand over his mouth.

Loki rolled his eyes, removed his hand, and folded his arms expectantly. Tony sucked in a breath, and then another, working to calm his pounding heart. He propped himself up on one elbow and made a move to sit up, but Loki immediately leaned over and planted a hand on his shoulder, keeping him pinned. Tony crossed his arms over his chest, “Fine, I’ll play your deranged game of I Spy. Where have I hidden, _what_ exactly?”

If the reference was unfamiliar, Loki’s face didn’t betray it. “The device that caused my ‘performance issues’ as you so _wittily_ chose to phrase it. Where are you hiding it?” It was impossible to miss Tony’s sharp inhale and elevated heart rate.

Tony’s still-drunk mind moved sluggishly, trying to work out why Loki needed to know while simultaneously cooking up an answer believable enough to fool the God of Lies. “It’s gone. I destroyed it after Thor brought you home to _Daddy_.” Tony raised his eyes to meet Loki’s and was disappointed by the lack of response. “It was dangerous, you know? Couldn’t have it falling into the wrong hands.”

Loki’s expression betrayed nothing as he leaned in close. “That’s a lie, Stark, and an amateurish one at that.” His voice was pitched low and dangerous and set off the last remaining shreds of self-preservation Tony possessed. Tony shifted backward to get out from under the hand pinning him to the bed, but the pillow stopped his progress and tilted his head toward Loki, whose face was now close enough to Tony for him to feel the god’s cool breath in his ear. “I’m not asking for anything difficult, Stark. Simply tell me where it is and I will be gone as if I were never here.”

Tony shoved the god backward and out of his personal space, crossing his arms with his back to the headboard. “Why do you need it? And more importantly, why the fuck aren't you in Asgard?”

Loki smiled, wide and feral and pleased with himself. “Hm, a bit of divine intervention, shall we say?”

“Yeah, right, okay. So you’re telling me that some deus ex machina bullshit gave you the chance to wriggle free and your first stop was to come sneaking back h-” another grinding roll of thunder cut him off. Loki looked skyward briefly, then back at Tony.

“Stark, what little patience I came here with is wearing rather thin. Give me the device now, before I feel the need to get _creative_.”

“Just tell me why you need it first.”

A murderous expression flitted across Loki’s face. “Since you are so Hel-bent on knowing: the Chitauri are after it, at the behest of their master. As a mortal,” Loki’s eyes skimmed Tony’s prone form skeptically, “you haven’t the slightest chance of keeping it from them.”

“Um, I don’t know if you happened to see me fly that fucking nuclear weapon through your portal, but the Chitauri are pretty fucking dead.” Tony said, voice flat. “We’ve been cleaning their bodies off our streets for the last five days.”

Loki laughed then, voice edged with something just to the left of sanity. “Don’t you Midgardians have some aphorism about the dangers of making assumptions? That fleet was hardly the last of them. There are billions more across the universe and, thanks to your heroics, they are quite _well acquainted_ with the name of Tony Stark.”

Tony gaped. “What?”

Loki laughed again, more softly but no less dangerous. “It’s not everyday that a being with a life-span as pathetic as yours manages to wipe out an entire fleet’s worth of soldiers. Their master is quite interested in possessing both your intellect and your device. The intellect I care not for; I have little interest in dealing with your bull-headedness, however the device will stay with me and as far away from their grasp as possible. Have I made myself clear?”

“‘Far away as possible?’ Last I checked they were playing backup band in your little domination world tour.”

“I’m not sparing the breath to explain my actions to you, but know this: they are not my allies, Stark; they never were. Despite what you may _think_ you have seen.” Loki caught his voice raising and lowered it immediately. “And while Thor searches for me, they search as well.”

“I can’t.”

Loki growled, leaning over the bed once more and curling a hand around Tony's throat. “You can’t what, exactly?”

“I'm telling the truth. I can't, the arc reactor, I mean, it’s--”

Loki paused then, and in the dim light of the phone, Tony watched as his eyes drifted down to rest on his chest. Tony’s dread slowed time almost to a halt as Loki’s other hand hovered over the reactor, light hidden by the close knit of the sweater. Without warning, a wickedly curved blade materialized in Loki’s free hand, which he plunged beneath the hem of the sweater and pulled from neck to waist.

Tony opened his eyes without realizing he’d shut them. Loki’s face was bathed in the blue glow of the arc reactor, expression unreadable and the knife nowhere to be seen. “A setback. I see. Barton told me you were ...damaged. I should have asked him to be more specific.”

Tony swallowed hard. “Told you I can't give it to you.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed as he ran his fingers over the reactor. “Only a minor setback. I’m confident there are ways to remove it. After all, someone had to have put it here in the first place.”

Tony reached for the hand around his throat, as Loki’s other hand started to seek purchase around the edge of the reactor. “Enough,” was all Loki said, and suddenly Tony’s limbs were frozen. A flick of the wrist of his free hand, and Tony’s hands, all of their own accord, released Loki and reached up to grab the edge of the headboard behind him. There was a momentary mental struggle as Tony wrestled against the command, only to give up as Loki pressed the blade of his knife against his throat.

“I don’t know what the fuck crazy mind-control shit you just did, but if you take the reactor with you, I’ll d-”

Above them, an impossibly loud crack of thunder sounded, and the ceiling shuddered under the weight of something large and heavy landing on the roof.

Tony stared at Loki, realization dawning. “Thor!” he called, loud enough for the sound to make it to the roof, he hoped. “I’m down here! Thor, get down here now! _It’s L_ -”

Loki pressed a hand to Tony's mouth again, hard enough to crack his jaw, and leaned in so close to Tony’s face that his breath tickled the shell of Tony's ear. “I would end you, Stark, right here and now,” Tony glared into his eyes, almost daring. “Were you not so absolutely, frustratingly _vital_ to everything.”

Tony’s eyes widened with surprise as Loki’s free hand began to glow. Somewhere above, Thor let out an almighty roar, and brought Mjolnir down on the roof beneath his feet. It gave way as he came crashing through the ceiling, landing in a heap on the bed that Tony had been occupying only seconds prior. He brushed the dust out of his eyes and looked up just in time to see Loki push through a glowing portal in the center of the room.

“Loki, no!” he cried, reaching out toward his brother’s disappearing silhouette.

Which dragged the mostly naked form of Tony Stark through the portal behind it.


End file.
